Saturday, 31 October 2015

Perhaps the term “web design” is a misnomer. It’s not just about design and aesthetic appeal, as many have been led to believe, but is also about enhancing user experience. A site might look flashy, but if visitors find it hard to use, then it will fail to gain steady traffic, page views, and conversions. Consumer-centric web design aims to address these challenges. The latest web design news from a Chron (@HoustonChron) article, entitled “Importance of Customer Centric Web Design,” states that putting you customers’ needs first could be very advantageous for your business.http://bit.ly/1GV7lnN

There’s an old proverb that goes: “At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go in the same box”. While that’s certainly true for people, it’s not exactly true for businesses nowadays. Because of online marketing, it’s possible for businesses to compete on a level playing field. In other words, even before the game ends, the pawn and the king are on equal footing.

The Local Edge

There’s certainly merit in having national (or maybe even international) reach. Being able to shift from one market to another, depending on which is favorable and which is failing, is certainly a plus. Having a wider area over which you can offer your goods and services is also a benefit.

However, when customers look for a restaurant, or a law firm, or a floral shop, or a bakery, they don’t think about visiting a shop that’s miles out of the way. They think of and look for options that are closer to their home turf. So local businesses with a strong local presence will outdo even a large multinational that has little recall and commands even less loyalty.

Exploiting the Local Scene

So what can local business owners do to compete with larger companies? The old tack of using posters and signboards is not as effective as it was before. People aren’t strolling around neighborhoods looking at signs as much as before. Instead, they look at their mobile devices and search for establishments that are close to their area.

To keep themselves in their prospective customers’ line of sight, local businesses should therefore make sure that they have a mobile-responsive website that can be viewed neatly on different mobile screens. At the same time, those sites should be optimized for local viewing by being registered on relevant local business listings online, along with being optimized using normal SEO parameters.

To do this effectively, of course, proprietors should keep abreast of digital marketing trends. To do this, the best thing is to subscribe to an online marketing news website that’s updated with hot and fresh content from leading industry experts.

Friday, 30 October 2015

SEO news sources, such as Marketing Digest, have seen SEO trends come and go, and make a point of promoting SEO techniques that produce great results and warning against the use of SEO techniques that could get websites penalized. An article that appeared in Quick Sprout (@neilpatel) highlighted five SEO techniques that SEO practitioners and business owners need to stop using immediately. When it comes to implementing SEO for your website and other web properties, there is a general rule to follow: any practice that is considered unethical, outdated, or beyond the confines of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines is considered to be bad SEO, and should be avoided.http://bit.ly/1jBUYs2

Thursday, 29 October 2015

The Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) article, “Be Sure to Balance SEO and User Experience in Your Web Page Design,” highlights a very important rule (in fact, the first one!) in Google’s list of philosophies: focus on the user and all else will follow. However, many SEO practitioners don’t heed this rule, as they’re focused on creating web pages designed for search engine crawlers rather than end users. Focusing on only one of two web design core pillars (which happen to be user experience and SEO) is not the way to go these days. While it’s true that the two concepts essentially complement each other (good user experience often results in better SEO, after all), there are specific elements of user experience that affect Google’s ability to “crawl” a webpage.http://bit.ly/1jBV037

Wednesday, 28 October 2015

Experts who offer reputation marketing insights state that a great online and offline reputation is vital for business success. According to an article posted at Expertise.com, (@ExpertiseLocal) simply put, a bad reputation translates to poor sales and low profits, while a good reputation can help ensure a thriving business. Listed below are some of the ways existing reputations can affect the continued viability of businesses, as well as the prospects of employers and their applicants. How Reputation Affects Businesses Business owners should heed the following statistics: around 88% of consumers read reviews about products or services before making purchases, and around 79% of consumers consider online and personal recommendations before finalizing their purchases. In other words, a single negative review can impact your business by more than 80%.http://bit.ly/1GV7nw3

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

If you’re like most eCommerce entrepreneurs, you want to generate more traffic and sales for your online store. Check out these actionable and up-to-date marketing tactics to help you drive these business goals: Drive More Sales with Pinterest’s Buyable Pins eCommerce marketing news sites, like Marketing Digest, have reported on the increasing integration of ecommerce and social media. An article published on Shopify (@Shopify) discusses Pinterest’s introduction of Buyable Pins. The online photo- and video-sharing site operates by letting users create personalized “pin boards” that others can see. Users can then pin interesting photos and videos that catch their eye.http://bit.ly/1jBUYrO

With all the content and discussion about search engine optimization online, it’s easy for people to assume that visibility is the name of the game. Get that top spot on the search engine rankings, and you’ve won the online marketing battle. While top ranking on search engines is a worthy goal, don’t assume that appeasing the bots and spiders that crawl your site is the target you must aim for.

User Experience

We know this intuitively, but with all the shots fired in the midst of our digital marketing campaigns, we forget the importance of user experience. You could put high-ranking keywords, formulate barely-relevant meta tags, and use other aggressive tactics to put yourself on the radar of your customers. Maybe they’ll go visit your site. But will they find themselves pleased to have found their way to you, or will they feel disappointed, lost in a labyrinth of confusing links and worthless linkbait?

Content Relevance

Some things don’t ever change, and a timeless concept of marketing has been the “WIIFM”, or “What’s in it for me”. Don’t assume that you can just write and post content every week, and that is enough to get points. Think about the relevance of your content. Who are you writing for? How can you help? What problems do they face that you can assist with? What content can satisfy and delight your site’s visitors? Giving people reasons to stay and browse your site is more important than getting them to come.

Google Takes Notice

Google is king of the search engines for a reason: it keeps users in mind when they rank websites in their results. Just as recently as July, Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that there is an update to the Panda algorithm that will be slowly rolled out, impacting 2-3% of search engine queries. Because it’s a slow rollout, the impact wasn’t expected to be apparent for a few months.
Have there been any changes? Maybe. To be sure, you’ll want to keep abreast of all the best online marketing news and insights from reliable subject matter experts.

Monday, 26 October 2015

Businesses that rake in customers make a killing because they address customer needs in the most ideal ways. That said, word of mouth can fly fast, especially when you have social media to consider. An underlying strategy for that revolves around studying the level of popularity of your business and its associated content, and use the data to guide you in future endeavors. Formulating that action plan can work with the information you glean from a source of fresh social marketing news such as Marketing Digest. Hotbed of Activity It’s not enough that you count how many likes, comments, or shares your posts reap. You also need to gauge the customers’ level of engagement in your posts and work your materials around it. According to Simply Measured (@simplymeasured) co-founder and CEO Adam Schoenfeld (@schoeny), a marketing program should always have its key metrics. For social media, the key metric is engagement rate.http://bit.ly/1GV7nvP

Sunday, 25 October 2015

Social media accounts are essential elements in any business endeavoring to establish their market stake online. While the user base in any social media network can be a large customer pool to tap, the messages about your product or service will be open to different levels of interpretation. As such, crafting the right message and sending them out will require using some special services, which is where providers of social marketing news like Marketing Digest can help. Good Intentions, But… A business seeking to promote a product or service will work to craft a message aimed at producing a desired effect among existing customers or at attracting potential customers. Hashtags are often included in the message in the hope that it’ll be a trending topic. However, certain factors affect the delivery and effect of the message without the senders knowing – and as a result, marketers are forced to backpedal and do damage control.http://bit.ly/1GV7l7o

Saturday, 24 October 2015

Though primarily the realm of big business, mobile marketing has progressed to a point where small and medium enterprises can now enjoy the benefits of mobile apps. SME’s need for mobile apps goes two ways: first, to help them run their business (communication, organization, time management, payment). Second, to help them reach and stay connected with their target audience. For marketers who want to understand both needs better, here are some mobile marketing insights from industry pundits. Apps for Business Owners Steve Nicastro (@StevenNicastro), on his article for NerdWallet (@NerdWallet) titled “The 20 Best Apps for Small-Business Owners”, noted that most business owners often have difficulty keeping track of employee work schedules, handling customer complaints, and monitoring expenses. A good app is what these owners can use not only to make their lives easier, but also to increase their business’s productivity and organization.http://bit.ly/1jBUZMB

Friday, 23 October 2015

As the media consumption habits of consumers are turning increasingly mobile, marketers will need to ramp up their strategies to keep pace. On the other hand, despite consumers’ growing adoption of mobile, many marketers are not increasing their expenditure on mobile marketing platforms and are failing to optimize their mobile marketing strategies. For marketers who want to gain a better understanding of mobile’s impact on the media consumption of consumers, here are some eye-opening statistics: Mobile Dominates the Lives of Consumers According to an article from Advertising Age (@adage), entitled “15 Mind-Blowing Stats About Mobile Marketing,” Internet browsing on mobile phones has already exceeded Internet browsing on PCs. Meanwhile, media consumption on mobile has achieved TV and Internet levels, while requiring a mere 10% of ad spend.http://bit.ly/1GV7l7d

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

If you currently manage a Google AdWords account as a means of complementing your other online marketing efforts, especially SEO, then you’re probably aware of the numerous metrics at your disposal to track and analyze. Sometimes, the process can get rather confusing as well as overwhelming. It’s a bit difficult to pinpoint which actual metrics you need to focus on, and also which ones are effective and provide the most returns when boosted. Since bandwidth is often limited, it would be a good idea to thin out the herd into a concise list of key metrics that actually provide meaningful PPC insights into what’s really working and what isn’t regarding your paid search campaigns.http://bit.ly/1GV32ZF

A business seeking a greater online presence nowadays will have a raft of tools at their disposal, one of which is email marketing. The practice involves sending special newsletters as attachments to customers who leave their details in a store feedback database. If you barely have an idea of how to do it, a source of marketing news and insights may help you out with a bevy of ways.

Simple Feedback/Subscription

Your website needs a feedback form located on a side of the page and should be active on all other pages to help customers log on. The form needs to have a few fields as possible, such as name, email address, and feedback text field plus a checkbox signifying consent to be furnished newsletters as email attachments.

Working the Newsletter

If your updates come in the form of newsletters, craft it so that the final design of the template is in line with your company’s official branding and existing content. This reassures the customer that what they’re perusing is truly from your firm. The articles in the newsletter, while reflective of the branding, must be broken up into shorter paragraphs for easier readability.

Targeted Sends

Customers patronizing your business may come from a variety of demographics. As such, you can expand your feedback form to include their items of interest; from here, you can tailor the newsletters to be specific to the target audience. For example, if your business is a hobby kit store, an attachment can be made for scale-kit modellers, while another will be addressed for RC enthusiasts.

As many healthcare marketers would attest, pay-per-click (PPC) ads are among the most powerful and profitable ways to direct targeted and high-quality traffic to your clients’ websites. When implemented correctly, PPC campaigns can be very lucrative for the healthcare industry, especially for private practices. Whether your clients are pediatricians or general physicians, it is important to remember that many prospective patients today find their doctors online. People use search engines to search for medical practitioners who’re located nearby and read online reviews. Hence, it is extremely beneficial for your clients’ practice if it can be easily found by prospective patients online. Even so, running a successful PPC campaign isn’t limited to creating a website and choosing the right keyword phrases with the most persuasive calls to action.http://bit.ly/1hSwoBt

Thursday, 15 October 2015

When you’re checking the rounds for any ideas to promote your business, viral videos may be among those that pop into mind. Any way you put it, a video helps show people a more tangible side of what product or service your business is about. Crafting it all together, though, can come through reading some informative news and insights on the marketing industry. There are a number of critical elements to consider when shooting a viral marketing video for your business.

1. Response to questions

Some viral videos are designed to address questions long raised by people. A number of these may even involve elements of your product or service in passing, especially when its about a case of problem-solving.

2. What’s it about?

The viral video needs to have an eyecatching title that immediately defines the video in a few words. A short description helps people know what the video is all about. In certain cases, uttering a certain keyword as part of the video script may work when attempting to post subtitles. You cannot rely on the video service’s subtitling system as certain dialogue may come out wrong.

3. Toot-Sweet

Viral videos must be short but still long enough to carry the message accurately to the audience. It may be possible if the footage is edited well and the dead air is eliminated. Some of the more popular viral videos can clock up to five minutes, but depending on the content thrust, others may go as short as two minutes.

Thursday, 1 October 2015

Dealing with bad online reviews can be tricky, especially when you think that the complaint has little to no merit. It’s instinctive to jump in and justify your company, but you should always stop yourself. There is a reason the saying “Customer is always right” has become a well-known business policy.

Consumers are the life-jacket of your company in a sea of competitive business: they keep you from drowning. Word of mouth is the best strategy in marketing, and if a consumer is unhappy with how you dealt with a certain problem, it can only escalate further. It could damage not just your reputation but also your sales.

Acknowledge the mistake and apologize.

It has become normal for people to hate on companies online if they feel like the business is dodging the blame or passing it onto others. Just as it is in personal relations, putting the blame on others is unwise because it just adds fuel to the fire.

Don’t answer negativity with negativity

Justifying your company and making the consumer realize it’s their fault is one thing. Being aggressive about it is another. Hitting back never leads to anything but more trouble, so it’s best to stay positive and instead turn the tables by engaging in a constructive way that will show your consumers that your company really cares about them. Be genuine and watch how you phrase your words.

For more news and insights about marketing strategies, visit http://marketingdigest.com/.

About Me

Megan Pearson is an avid online marketing consultant and evangelist. She is also passionate about design and fashion. Being part of Marketing Digest allows her to keep track of developments and innovation in the industry and throw in some of her design concepts.